Margaret Bruton’s early art education

https://bartable.bart.gov/featured/san-francisco-art-institute

Margaret Bruton was the first sister to pursue formal training when she began attending the San Francisco Institute of Art (now called the San Francisco Art Institute). The institute, one of the country’s oldest art schools, was established by a group of artists who joined together to promote the unique regional art of the west. The school, which is still in operation today, has always “embodied a spirit of experimentation, risk-taking, and innovation [and] has attracted individuals who push beyond boundaries to discover uncharted artistic terrain.”¹ The Institute also was supportive of women artists and held one of the first women-only art exhibits in 1885.

Margaret’s first mentor at the Institute was Frank Van Sloun (1879-1938), a social realist and member of the Ashcan school. Ashcan school artists, who used average working people as their subject matter, critiqued the social systems that caused the suffering of the working class. Later in life, Margaret said “Frank Van Sloun is the one I remember best, that seemed to make the most impression.”² It is significant that Margaret’s first formal art training was at an institution dedicated to the “West Coast legacy of radical innovation” and her first instructor was an artist who rebelled against the conservative art establishment. Although in many ways she received a traditional art education, from the beginning Margaret -- and the sisters who would follow behind her — was encouraged to be independent, innovative, bold, and modern.  

Frank Van Sloun’s Favorite Picture of Frank Val Sloun, SF Artist. 
Cleveland, Ohio?: Newspaper Enterprise Associaton, 1925. Print.

California History Room Portrait Collection, California State Library

While at the San Francisco Institute of Art, Margaret primarily studied drawing. In 1913 she submitted two of her works to the annual scholarship competition sponsored by the Art Students League of New York. This was a prestigious competition, with submissions from the best art schools across the United States. Organizers of the competition that year remarked on the strong contributions from institutions in the west. Margaret’s submission impressed both the judges and the press. One reviewer enthused that her drawings “were strongly drawn, carried remarkably well, stood out in bold relief, and their well managed values and technique suggested beautiful color and vibratory quality.”³ Margaret, at the age of nineteen, was awarded one of the sought after scholarships to the Art Students League and departed for New York in August 1913. Eventually Esther and Helen would study at the Art Students League as well.

_________________________

¹“SFAI History,” from the website for San Francisco Art Institute, www.sfai.edu/about-sfai/sfai-history

²Interview, December 4, 1964.

³T.L. Fitz Simons. “The Competition of the Art Students’ League.” In Arts and Decoration, June 1913, p. 283.